As people are out enjoying Milwaukee's summer, the mayor said it's his priority to make sure everyone is safe.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Milwaukee's mayor and police chief took to the streets to release their summer-policing plan.

The mayor started with some crime statistics, saying year-to-date, the number of homicides and robberies are down.

However, carjackings are up about 5 percent.

Mayor Tom Barrett acknowledged carjackings have been getting a lot of attention lately and said that overall, the level of crime is still too high.

"The safety and well-being of Milwaukee residents continues to be my top priority, along with job creation and my executive budgets year after year that have been adopted by the Council reflect that," Barrett said.

"The second equally important goal is to reduce levels of fear in that location because, as I've said before, high rates of fear drive people from public spaces, remove informal social control and create a climate for crime by leaving public spaces to criminals," Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said.

Advertisement

The city is working on location-based policing -- more foot patrols and bicycle patrols will be in the locations likely to see spikes in crime in the summer.

Flynn said the officers will cover a cluster of beats during their eight-hour shift so that more people will see them.